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Siberian Stuff I 

Being some notes and observations 

on affairs in Siberia made by 

a discharged ''Duration of War" soldier, 

recently returned from that country. 

Frank Beaman 





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Price Ten Cents 



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JAN -3 i920 

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SIBERIAN STUFF 

When the Alhes started guarding the railroad in 
Siberia, a proclamation was circulated as widely as 
possible, stating that no interference in political affairs 
was desired but that the operation of the railway be- 
ing necessary to the public good, the Allies would do 
what they could to keep the line working until condi- 
tions in Russia are a little more settled and they can 
handle it themselves. 

One place where the American troops are doing 
guard duty is a little coal road, branching off the main 
line of the Trans-Siberian at Ugolnia. This branch 
goes to the Suchan coal mines. Before the revolution 
these mines supplied coal for about 2000 miles of the 
main line. This branch line consists of regular rail- 
road to Kanguas and from there on is a combination of 
narrow guage and cable. Not a very up to date rail- 
road but it did the work. There seems to be an un- 
limited amount of coal at Suchan and no doubt it will 
develop into quite a coal region when the country gets 
thru fighting. 

The first troops sent to Suchan were M company, 
31st U. S. Infantry, a company of Japanese, 50 Chinese 
and two squads of Russians. A small detail was left 
at Kanguas, where the coal has to be transferred from 
the little narrow guage cars to the regular standard 
coal cars, another detail was left at Tigrovia to guard 
a lumber mill that supplies timbers to the mines. The 
bulk of the outfit, about 500 men went on to the mines 



and were quartered for the winter in barracks formerly- 
used by the Russian Army. At that time Romanovka, 
Novonezia and the other little towns along- the line 
were reasonably peaceful farming communities. 

No serious trouble had been happening at the mines 
when these troops arrived, only that when the country 
went Free the miners had decided that they didn't like 
the Superintendent who had been in charge during the 
old regime so they had fired him and elected one of the 
miners to be Superintendent. The mines were almost 
at a standstill. 

Coal is a very necessary article in Siberia and the 
miners saw that someone had to be in charge of get- 
ting it out who knew how, so the former Superintend- 
ent was reinstated. He secured some much needed 
supplies, repairs for machinery, etc., and the mines 
started producing again. The miners appointed a com- 
mittee to act for them in the way of arguments over 
working conditions, wage increases, etc., just like a 
regular union, only it was composed of Russians. 

The coal miners and their families are openly Bolshe- 
viki, not that they are any more agreed on what Bol- 
shevikism consists of than the rest of the world but 
they sure enjoy taking on a few drinks of Vodka and 
talking- about ''Free Russia" and this brotherhood of 
man stufif. 

On one of their very numerous holidays about 3,000 
of the miners and their families got together for a 
picnic and parade. The parade formed over at No. 2 
mine and came marching over to No. 1, where the 
Americans were quartered, everybody waving turkey 
red flags or carrying some kind of banner with bolshe- 
viki slogans on them. 

It looked like a raid at first but as soon as the Amer- 
icans saw that they were unarmed and just celebrat- 
ing they decided that it was not a time for interference 
even if they were all waving red flags. Evidently the 
parade was meant to impress the Americans, at least 
it stopped right in front of M company's quarters for 



a speech-making. One of the spellbinders got up on a 
stump and started talking, everything was going fine 
until the audience started to argue with the speaker 
when it came near turning into a free for all fight. 

Everything was peaceable at Suchan all winter ex- 
cept that the two squads of Russian soldiers got on a 
big drunk one night and started shooting up the town 
a little, just for fun. No one was hurt, but the Rus- 
sians were transferred back to Vladivostok shortly 
afterward. 

Frolovka, Kazanka and several other little towns are 
supposed to be Bolsheviki headquarters — at least they 
are openly in revolt against the government Kolchak 
is trying to establish. These communities have lots of 
political meetings where they appoint committees, 
elect Generals and everything. 

The American soldier is a sociable sort of human 
and lots of them made friends with the Russians, the 
language isn't near as hard as it looks in print. The 
Russian women and children are mostly pretty strong 
for the American soldier, he is generous with his 
money, for a few days around payday at least and the 
kids sure like American chewing gum. When the 
Ruble is fluctuating all the way from 10 to 70 for a 
dollar, soldier pay seems like quite a bank roll. One 
of the many things that the Russians can't understand 
is the respect the Americans have for womenfolks. 
When a Russian gets drunk about the first thing he 
does is to start beating up the women and kids. Some- 
times he doesn't have much luck because some of the 
Russian women are pretty husky. However the Amer- 
icanskys don't do that and the characteristic seems to 
have made quite a hit, with the women and kids at 
least. The Russian men regard the American attitude 
with about the same concern that the first women suf- 
fragists excited here. 

H company of the 31st and some more Japanese 
went to Suchan in March of this year to help out a 
little on the guard duty there. There's ten separate 



mines scattered over five or six miles of coimtry and 
while numbers one and two are producing the most 
coal a guard is kept on all of them. Several trains 
were shot at along this branch last spring and a lot 
more troops were sent out to guard the railroad. Five 
companies of the 31st, A, C, D, E, and K, some more 
Japs and a few Russians from Kolchak's army. 

Along in June a bank was robbed somewhere and. 
A. E. F. Headquarters sent out orders to arrest the 
leader of the gang that did it. Also information that 
he was somewhere in the vicinity of Suchan. One of 
H company's Provost guards arrested a man who 
seemed to answer the description. He was buying 
everything in town and seemed to have plenty of 
rubles. He told them that he was a Bolsheviki Gen- 
eral buying supplies for his army, which was all right 
only they decided to hold him for investigation and 
report to Vladivostok. Which they did. One of the 
cable power houses had been blown up and the railroad 
wasn't working very good so communication with 
Headquarters was held up. While the Bolsheviki Gen- 
eral was in jail other things began happening. 

Fishing in the Suchan river about five miles from 
camp was pretty good and it was a popular pastime 
for soldiers off duty. Saturday night June 21st, Daly, 
Moore and Bullard of H company went fishing with 
permission to stay out all night. Sunday morning, 
the 22nd, Lt. Fribley and Cpl. Read went fishing also. 
They had a little drosky with an army mule furnish- 
ing the motive power. All fine and regular. About 
noon a Chinaman came in and reported that the Bol- 
sheviki had taken all these men prisoners. 

His story seemed straight enough to cause a little 
uneasiness so some M company ment went out to in- 
vestigate. Rain had fallen Saturday night so it was 
no trouble to trail the drosky with the mule. The 
tracks showed where it had been surrounded and taken 
toward Novitskaya. 

Col. Williams took 110 men from M company and 



started to Novitskaya, sending out Lt. Ward, Cpl. 
Read, Pvt. Flake and Pvt. Craig" as an advance guard 
about 200 yards ahead of the company. About four 
miles from camp they had to cross the Suchan river 
wading in the v^ater waist deep. Fine way to be 
spending a Sunday afternoon. 

A Russian on horseback met them just after they 
had crossed the stream, who volunteered the informa- 
tion that he knew where the Americans were in No- 
vitskaya, and offered to take them to the place. He 
said they were all in a certain restaurant, drinking and 
too drunk to come home. Even this was good news 
but it didn't quite ring true, not that soldiers don't slip 
out and take a few drinks occasionaly in spite of G. O. 
No. 20, but the Russkie said that they were all to- 
gether and while Lieutenants are quite as liable to 
take a drink once in a while the Army is very strict 
about officers drinking with the enlisted men. It just 
isn't done. 

At the edge of Novitskaya there's a place on the road 
where there is a high board fence on one side and on 
the other a little stream with a brush covered hill be- 
yond. When the column arrived here the church bell 
in town rang three short rings and a volley of shots 
came from the brushy hillside. The Russian volunteer 
guide jumped off his horse, ran up the hillside and 
started to pick up a rifle. He never got to use it. The 
Americans spread out and laid down in the road as 
quickly as possible and returned the fire. Cpl. Heaton 
told me he had good aim at the Russkie who led them 
into the trap and he will always believe that he got 
at least that one Bolsheviki. Bullets were flying 
pretty thick for a few minutes but only two men in th? 
party were wounded. The prompt spreading out and 
lying down no doubt saved them from all being killed, 
even if the shooting from the brush was very poor. 
As soon as the American had fired a few rounds into 
the brush the firing from there stopped and when they 
rushed the hill they found it deserted. 



They advanced into town and the first thing they 
found was their advance guard, Read and Flake dead, 
Ward and Craig badly wounded. They both died later. 
It was getting dusk but they proceeded into town look- 
ing for the missing fishermen. They never found them 
but obtained information that they were prisoners and 
had been taken to Frolovka and were being held by 
the Bolsheviki there. 

The company rounded up 50 or 75 of the male pop- 
ulation of the town and made them help in getting the 
wounded and dead back to quarters. There v^as no 
trouble in taking these men prisoners, in fact as soon 
as the Americans approached a house all the Russkies 
came out with their hands up and protested that they 
had had nothing to do with the shooting. The poor 
devils thought at first that they were all going to be 
shot down right away and some of them no doubt de- 
served death. The Americans felt reasonably sure 
that some of their prisoners were the same ones who 
had been shooting at them a few minutes before but 
they all denied it of course. Americans just can't 
shoot helpless prisoners unles they are sure of their 
guilt so they turned them loose and sent them home. 
The trouble in getting supplies in over the railroad 
was such that H and M company were facing a food 
shortage themselves. These prisoners would not have 
minded being held prisoners by the Americans on ac- 
count of the American Army Chow. The food short- 
age over there is such that Army chow would look 
good to a lot of those people. 

While the Americans were getting ready to go to 
Frolovka to try to rescue the prisoners, a messenger 
came in with word from them stating that they were 
being treated alright only that the Bolsheviki were 
holding them and wanted to trade them for the Bol- 
sheviki General that the Americans were holding at 
Suchan. That was quickly arranged and the exchange 
made. Whether the Bolsheviki General was the bank 
robber or not wasn't settled, when the chance came to 



trade him for five perfectly good Americans there was 
no delay in making a deal. 

This coal road is a very important part of keeping 
the Railroad working in Siberia. Whether the trouble 
there is worse than it is other places or not I don't 
know, anyhow that is where most of the action par- 
ticipated in by the 31st took place. 

Provisional Battalion Headquarters were established 
at Shkotovo and A, C. D, and E companies had com- 
pany headquarters there. K company stayed at 
Ugalnaya. All of these companies saw more or less 
action, the worst was the A company affair at Roman- 
ovka. About 70 men of A company were camped in 
tents at the edge of Romanovka, their camp was sim- 
ply surrounded by Bolsheviki and fired on at daylight 
of June 25tli — most of the Americans were in bed yet 
and the miraculous part of the affairs was that any of 
them got out alive. However those who were able to 
get up and around at all put up such a fight that the 
Bolsheviki left without taking anyone prisoner or 
capturing anything, also leaving several of their own 
dead, one of whom was the leader of the gang. 

Several heroic stunts were pulled off at this affair; 
it seems to me the best one was the two fellows who 
escaped under fire and went to Shkotovo for help — • 
they were both wounded but succeeded in getting thru. 
Lt. Butler had his lower jaw pretty badly shot off but 
he nevertheless gave a very good account of himself 
in the fighting. Garrison Patrick did some good work 
with an automatic rifle. Sgt. Campbell accounted for 
one or two Bolsheviks with his automatic pistol, every- 
one did all they could. I talked to several who got out 
alive and while I'm sure they all must have did won- 
ders they weren't inclined to brag about it. They sim- 
ply figured that they were lucky to not be killed in- 
stantly like the eighteen who were. 

Bunneau had about as close a call as anyone who 
got out alive, he was badly Avounded by the first vol- 
ley but managed to get behind the woodpile and while 



bullets were flying pretty thick all around him he 
lived thru and the last I heard of him he was in the 
hospital at San Francisco and getting along fine. 

A Russian woman living in a log house near by car- 
ried water and did some good first aid work under fire, 
helping wounded Americans to her house and also tak- 
ing drinks to men who couldn't get to shelter. 

The reinforcements got to the scene of action be- 
fore noon and the Bolsheviki retreated, the Americans 
went out after them but didn't succeed in locating 
them. The wounded and dead Americans were taken 
to the hospital at Vladivostok as soon as possible. 

This affair at Romanovka was written up in the 
papers here in the States more or less accurately at the 
time but very little mention was ever made of the fight 
at Novonezia which happened the morning of June 
26th. They were attacked about the same way the 
detachment at Romanovka were only with quite dif- 
ferent results. 

This detachment at Novonezia consisted of 48 men 
from E company, they were evidently a little better 
prepared for an attack than the A company men were 
for they had trenches dug, barricades built and also 
they had outpost guards out who saw the Bolsheviki 
coming and came in and gave the alarm. When the 
Bolsheviki arrived the Americans were ready for them. 
The attack was worked just like the one at Roman- 
ocka (probably by the same bunch) i. e., they fired 
a volley into the tents just at daylight. However the 
tents were empty, the Americans all being in the 
trenches or behind barricades of some kind; as soon 
as the Bolsheviki opened fire the Americans did also 
with disastrous results for the enemy. 

The personality that stands out in the stories of this 
scrap is Sgt. Jimmy Gardner, an old Regular from 
back in '98; he seemed to be everywhere at once and 
kept telling them ''keep cool fellows — you may be a 
little scared — I know I am myself, but we've got it on 
'em." They did have too, for tho several men had 



close calls no one was hurt while the Reds left several 
dead and no telling how many wounded they took 
with them. 

Incidentaly that Automatic rifle the Americans are 
using over there is a wonder, it only weigh 15 pounds 
and works about like an ordinary rifle only that it 
shoots 20 shots quick. 

The weather in Eastern Siberia was cold and foggy 
up to the latter part of May, along about the first of 
June it began warming up a little and started to rain. 
It was simply wonderful the way the country turned 
green — it is a brushy, hilly country mostly and the 
change sure seemed fine after the long winter. The 
rain sure put the roads in bad condition tho and most 
of the hiking around this section where the fighting 
was going on was in the mud. Pretty tough soldiering 
for a while but the Americans were in good shape and 
stood it well. I know one man tho who lost twenty 
pounds in weight between May 19th and August 22nd. 
A lot of us got too fat last winter. 

When communication between Shkotovo and Such 
-an was cut ofif; C and D companies hiked, fought and 
railroaded their way in to Suchan to help out H and 
M companies. 

They were fired on from the hills along the way but 
had only one casualty. Jack Low of D company got 
some pretty bad wounds at Sitza. However they got 
thru. 

The S. S. Albany took a load of supplies from Vladi- 
vostok up the coast and landed them at Vladimora. All 
of C, D, H and M company that could leave the mines 
and a company of about 200 Japs went on this expe- 
dition from Suchan to Vladimora — it is only about 
twenty miles but the roads were very bad and there 
was shooting at them from the hills along the way. 
D company had the worst luck of any of the Ameri- 
cans, a volley was fired at them just as they were en- 
tering Vladimora that killed Schurter and badly 
wounded Jefcoat and Ricker, several others were slight- 



\y wounded but not seriously. The Japanese company 
had a few casualties also, two killed and several slight- 
ly wounded. 

The Albany had in addition it its own crew about 
100 men from G company of the 31st and they were 
all ready to fight their way inland with the supplies 
if necessary. 

Vladimora is a little fishing village of about 2000 
and there was no dock or harbor facilities where the 
Albany could land their supplies easy but they had 
also brought along some German prisoners from Vladi- 
vostok who volunteered for the trip and they did some 
good work in unloading supplies. These German 
prisoners wanted to join in the fight but the authorities 
wouldn't stand for it. 



The American Railroad men in Russia are doing- 
some good in the way of helping in the operation of 
the Trans-Siberian but they have a lot to contend with. 
Operating a railroad is quite a job itself as most any 
railroad man will admit, but when bridges are blown 
up, trains wrecked or held up and robbed frequently 
and there's a lot of grafting government officials try- 
ing to get theirs by giving priority orders, etc., it 
makes a pretty tough proposition. 

There is some pretty fair railroad equipment in use 
but the labor troubles in Siberia are worse than any- 
one in the United States who hasn't been in Russia 
can imagine. 

The money situation makes business operations of 
any kind very uncertain and the employees of the rail- 
road no sooner get a raise in pay than the Ruble de- 
preciates so much in value that it doesn't do much 
good. Very little of anything is being produced in the 
country and "The High Cost of Living" is a fright. 

The peaceful operation of the railroad in Russia 
would help things there a lot but the needs of the 
country are so many and various that no one thing 
is going to restore order in the country. The cities 



need improved public utilities of all kinds, street cars, 
electricity, water, sewage, etc. There's some good 
schools but educational facilities are very inadequate 
to the needs of the population. The Greek Catholic 
Church is about the only one that amounts to any- 
thing in Siberia and it has lost a great deal of its in- 
fluence since the revolution. There is a crying need 
for a whole lot of the religion of the Golden Rule. 

The country districts need improved farming ma- 
chinery of all kinds, better stock, up to date informa- 
tion on farming and a whole lot of protection from out- 
laws. It's pretty discouraging to the Russian farmer 
who raises a crop to have a gang of bandits make a 
raid on his storehouses and carry off everything and 
this is a sadly common occurrence. If the farmer 
makes any resistance he is killed and his family along 
with him or maybe the womenfolks are made prisoners 
and suffer a worse fate than death. 



The only government that has any kind of an or- 
ganization is the one headed by Kolchak, he was ap- 
pointed or at least assumed the office of Supreme 
Ruler — to direct everything until such time as the 
country is a little more settled and can hold an election. 

Whether his organization is strong enough to bring 
order out of the chaos that is in effect there now or 
not remains to be seen. 

The very small percentage of educated Russians are 
mostly the ones who were ''in right" with the old 
regime. These educated people are pretty solid for 
Kolchak, and a lot of them are holding office of some 
kind under him. Some of them are no doubt, square, 
conscientious people but a whole lot of them are loyal 
to Kolchak simply because they are gaining some ad- 
vantage by professing to be so. If they lose faith in 
Kolchak a lot of them would be just as loyal to some- 
one else as long as it paid. Also no matter how up- 
right a man this Kolchak may be he has to use these 



people to the best advantage possible to make any 
kind of government at all. 

The larger portion of the population, call them the 
"Great Unwashed", Bolsheviki or whatever you please, 
can't agree on any kind of government themselves but 
at the same time they are not at all satisfied with what 
they term "The Kolchak Outfit". It looks too much 
like simply substituting Kolchak for the former Czar. 

The Russians who are educated and keep themselves 
fairly clean and decent are terribly arrogant, conceited 
and "stuck up" also they are very much ashamed of 
and also afraid of their poor, ignorant fellow-citizens 
who are mostly a pretty dirty, drunken and indecent 
lot. 

This large element of "Roughnecks" is finding out 
the depths of its ignorance and is "Snapping out of 
the dope" right along and some day Russia will be a 
fine country. The stories about undeveloped resources, 
mines, timbers, farming land, etc., are as glowing as 
some of the ones the early Spanish explorers had about 
America. 

The American Red Cross is doing a lot of good work 
in Siberia and there's other institutions that are work- 
ing for a general betterment of conditions. The coun- 
try is improving right along but inasmuch as it is just 
emerging from a condition where most of the people 
were little better than slaves it is easy to see that they 
have a long ways to go. 

The troubles betw^een the Americans and the Jap- 
anese soldiers in Siberia look a great deal worse in the 
press reports than they do over there, not that there 
isn't som.e friction of course but naturally the abnormal 
and the sensational play a large part in the news. Oc- 
casionally the newspapers have an item in them about 
a baseball game between a picked team of American 
and Japanese players but the everyday "sand lot" ball 
games where the score is 26 to 14, and they only play 
seven innings because a lot of the players have to go 



on guard at 4 o'clock don't get much publicity. That 
isn't news. 

There's a lot of fine friendly feeling between the 
American and Japanese soldiers over there but of 
course both armies contain a few trouble makers and 
they naturally get the headlines in the press reports. 

Russia is looking to America a whole lot for help of 
all kinds and I'm sure the authorities in Washington 
are well informed on conditions in that country and 
are doing all they can. 

Some of the Radical Reds in this country are bad 
enough but here the forces of law and order are well 
able to handle them. If the police get overv/orked 
there's a lot of returned M. P's in the country who 
would make dandy officers in civil life. 

The sensation of getting back to America is almost 
worth while spending a year in Siberia for — I never 
hear anyone grumbling about conditions here but what 
I think "You ought to spend a year in Siberia, then 
you would appreciate the United States." *'As is." 




Printed in December, 1919 

Watson-Jones, Inc., Printers 

San Diego, California 

>35 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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